


Harry

by Veeebles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Character Death, Fluff, M/M, bittwersweet, chemo - Freeform, hopsital, sad fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 22:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10863123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veeebles/pseuds/Veeebles
Summary: I don’t remember being in the coma.My sisters often ask me if I could hear them while I was under. Apparently they would come visit me every day after school, read me my favourite books or just tell me about their days. They told me they hoped I could hear them and that I would be comforted while I slept.They told me I had been asleep for nearly five weeks. They told me they had been told I might never come out of it.I don’t remember it at all.The only thing I do remember is waking up and hearing singing.It was a lovely, deep, male voice, perfectly carrying the notes to a song I was unfamiliar with.





	Harry

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by CP "Mason"

I don’t remember the accident.

I don’t remember being in the coma.

My sisters often ask me if I could hear them while I was under. Apparently they would come visit me every day after school, read me my favourite books or just tell me about their days. They told me they hoped I could hear them and that I would be comforted while I slept.

They told me I had been asleep for nearly five weeks. They told me they had been told I might never come out of it.

I don’t remember it at all.

The only thing I do remember is waking up and hearing singing.

It was a lovely, deep, male voice, perfectly carrying the notes to a song I was unfamiliar with.

Once I opened my eyes, however, all I could hear was sobbing, familiar voices thanking god, calling my name and more crying. The rest of the day was a buzz of tests, questions, more tests, doctors, my mum smiling and gripping my hand telling me over and over how relieved he was to have me back again. More tests.

They told me it was a frosty, winter’s night I got hit by the car. They never did find out who it was – some drunk driver they reckoned.

It was a long time before I even noticed the other boy in the room with me. He was sitting in his bed to the left of mine, reading a book. He turned his head and saw me staring. He winked and flashed a cheeky grin at me then returned to his book.

Eventually – after my sisters and mother were ushered out the room by the doctors insisting I needed rest- we were alone. .

I looked over to the boy, still sitting reading his book.

“Hi.”

He turned his head, grinning in surprise and went to wave at me. He had one of those finger pulse things attached to him and his movements caused it to snap off his finger and dangle off his bed.

“Oops,” he uttered, looking at it swaying from side to side before grabbing it and re-attaching it to his finger.

“Name’s Harry” he said and I was surprised at how deep his voice was. He looked positively angelic; all clear, pale skin, high cheekbones and a perfect face. His lips, oh god how was it possible for lips to look so damn good? Pink and plump as if they had been kissed every second of the day which Louis decided they really should. His hair was a mop of curls, falling down to his shoulders. His body lean and long, legs bent to fit himself in the bed.

“I’m Louis,” he replied, after realizing Harry was waiting expectantly for him to answer.

“I know,” he said, grinning at my confused expression, “I’d talk to your sister and mum while you were asleep – they told me your name and stuff.”

“And stuff?”

He shrugged and looked to the celling thoughtfully, “Like you favourite colour, music, star sign…”

I couldn’t help but laugh at him. He was easy to talk to. He was smiling softly the whole time and seemed to be happy talking to me too.

“Well, what’s my favourite colour then?”

He grinned, closing his book and setting it aside. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat facing me, long legs dangling to and fro like a child.

“Well, your favourite colour is blue, because you apparently like the sky and the sea when you were younger, it was also coincidentally one of your first words.”

I was impressed. Not so much that he knew, when someone got my mother talking there was no stopping her and no filtering what she said.

“Not bad, Harold, you’ve got a good memory at least.”

I didn’t miss the way Harry’s eyes light up a little at the nickname. I seemed to spur him on and he was grinning wider, getting up off the bed and moving around the room, untangling himself from his wires and monitors carelessly.

“let’s see, what else…your favourite band is the Fray, you play the piano and you love football, your favourite movie is Grease, your star sign is Capricorn…”

He shot that smug grin at me, wandering closer to my bed as he spoke. He stood over me now, managing to look so attractive in the silly hospital gown.

“Not bad, you know me better than I do.”

His grin widened.

He shuffled back over to his bed, settling back down and reconnecting his wires, glancing at the door with a mischievous expression as two nurses appeared, fussing over him and berating him for being out of bed.

He grinned at me as they left and I couldn’t help but laugh at him. He had an easy nature; even the nurses that had been telling him off did so with fond smiles. This boy was intriguing to me. I wanted to know more about him. I decided I really should if I was going to be spending the next few months with him as my roommate.

“I have an idea; let’s play 20 questions.”

There was that grin again, “okay! You go first.”

We passed the evening away like that. I learned so much about Harry, and found we had a lot in common. He told me all about his family and his sister, the instruments he could play, how he loved to sing and write songs. He was fascinating.

My Doctor broke our chatter to give me the basics on my injuries. He told me hat in the accident I received a nasty concussion, but also that my legs were badly broken. He told me I had a sixty percent chance of ever walking again. I would never play football again.

When he left, after fashioning me with the painkillers and medication for the night, the room was quiet. I digested the information I had received. Sixty percent chance. The odds had never been in my favour. I pushed down the bed sheets a little to glare at the thick, heavy casts that encased both my legs. I couldn’t move them, couldn’t really feel them. Sixty percent chance…

“Hey, Lou?”

I jump a little at his voice, forgetting for a moment where I was and that he was there. I look over to where he is lying in his bed, his eyes are drooping and he’s rolled over to face me, both hands tucked under his cheek like a baby. The room is dark now, nearing ten o’clock. I feel the exhaustion set in me, the day’s events finally catching up.

“Yeah?” I ask, leaning back against my pillows, unable to turn anything but my head to look at the curly headed boy.

“I’m glad to be sharing a room with you,” he says softly, eyes drooping closed.

I smile at him, feeling my heavy eyes slip closed too, I yawn and settle down for the night, wanting to laugh at needing more sleep when it was all I did for five weeks.

“Me too, Harry.”      

 

V

 

Over the weeks, Harry and I got closer and closer.

The nurses in the ward said we were like an adorable married couple when they saw us lying in bed together or when he would wheel me down the hall to the garden in my wheelchair, whispering terrible jokes in my ear so I’d throw my head back and laugh.

Harry had Cancer. Leukaemia.

He was going through the strongest chemo his body could withstand, his cancer growing more aggressive every day. He had his good days and bad. Sometimes he would be the usual grinning Harry, flirting aimlessly with the nurses and laughing as I buried my face in his chest when we lay together watching a scary movie. Other days, he would come back from his treatment completely drained, his skin tinged green, his eyes sunken and heavy in his skull. He would fall into bed with me, bundle himself up in my arms and I would hold him as he trembled.

But no matter what, he would always be there to comfort me. When I came back from a particularly frustrating physical therapy session or when we flicked through the channels on the tv and I would stiffen when the football came on, even when the doctors fitted me for my leg braces I would apparently need to spend the rest of my life wearing, he would always be there with that cheeky grin of his, his arms wide open and soft words of comfort in my ear.

As the weeks went on, he started getting worse. The chemo was taking its toll on his body. His long curls thinned and soon, nearly every morning he would wake up to find strands lying on his pillow. Or when we lay together and I ran my fingers through his hair, thick locks began coming out. His skin got paler, his skin stretched tighter over his bones, dark circles forever under his green eyes.

I cried when we shaved his head.

He said he wanted me to do it, and I thought I could be strong for him.

I failed miserably.

I went as far as cutting off one lock of soft, curly hair and tears were rolling down my cheeks. But I kept going.

He was sitting watching me in the mirror, but he stayed still, letting me work through is as I cut curl after curl, tears still coming but I stayed silent, determined to do this.

When his hair was just messy, short chunks, he just sat there, smiling at me in the mirror. I knew he was trying to reassure me. But I also knew he was scared to look.

So I let him watch me and I continued on. Green eyes boring into my reflection as I took the shaver and felt it buzz in my hand as I drew it across his scalp. Soon that noise and the feeling of it vibrate n my hand and the green eyes watching my face the whole time was all I knew.

When I was done, I took a razor and knelt in front of him, running it over any parts I had missed. His eyes still were on me, my body blocking his reflection until he was ready.

I blew the hairs away from his neck and sat back and finally looked at him whole.

He looked so different.

His cheekbones seemed more prominent. His eyes were greener than ever. He was still beautiful without his hair, but he looked sick.

I smiled at him and kissed his forehead gently, standing back to look at him.

I didn’t ask if he was ready. I just stood there in front of him until he was.

It was about five minutes until he blew out a breath and nodded his head. He shook the remaining hair off his shoulders and stood, looking over my head at himself in the mirror.

I turned and his arms came around me, his chin resting on my shoulder as he just stared at us both.

“Now you can call me baldy,” he joked, but is voice was rough with emotion and it caused me to turn and wrap my arms around his waist. He held me close and murmured reassurances in my ear, brought my hands to his head to feel the smooth skin there.

“It’s not so bad, Lou. And it’s not forever.”

 I cried into his chest, unable to stop thinking about how thin he felt, how weak his arms around me were. He used to be so solid, so steady, my anchor, but now he was wasting away into nothing and it broke my heart to see.

“I wish I could do something. I would give blood, bone marrow, anything if it meant you could get better. I wish I could take it away.”

He didn’t say anything just held me, big hands rubbing up and down my back, his chapped lips pressing to my hair.

 

V

 

As the months went by, I grew stronger, but Harry grew weaker. As I started being able to get out of my bed, walking awkwardly in my braces, he was tied to his more. Some days he didn’t even have the energy to do much more than open his eyes. The nurses came in and out, filling him with all kinds of medications and all I could do was stand by uselessly as he suffered and wish it would work.

One day I came back from a relatively successful physical therapy session, feeling happy after being told my braces might not be forever, just a bad limp. I might even be able to play football again maybe.

I hurried back to our room to tell Harry, but stopped in the doorway when I saw my mother sitting by his bed, reading one of my favourite books from my childhood to him.

I stayed where I was, the metal clatter of my braces would break this serene spell. My mother’s voice was soft and she read it just like she used to do to me. One hand was on Harry’s bed, holding his fingers. Harry ay back, eyes squeezed shut, breathing low and slow, but I could see his thumb caress my mother’s hand every so often, a little sign that what she was doing was what he wanted.

I wanted to cry. I wanted this to be different. I wanted the accident to never have happened. I wanted Harry to never have been diagnosed with his cancer. I wanted to have met him somewhere, anywhere else. I wanted a normal life with him; going out on dates instead of the hospital garden. I wanted him to cook me the amazing meals he always bragged about instead of the crappy hospital food. I wanted to take him home to meet my mum as my boyfriend, not he boy I shared a hospital room with and incidentally fell in love with. I wanted it all to be different. He didn’t deserve this.

A week later, I lost him for the first time.

Overnight a high fever had seized him and his heart had stopped for four and a half minutes.

The low beep of the heart monitor they had hooked him up to had been a strange comfort for me to hear. I would lie beside him, my head pressed against his chest, listening to his heart beat on and on, praying desperately that I would hear that rhythmic noise forever, that it would never stop.

He was so fragile; I could not sleep in the same bed with him that night. We pushed my bed over to his so we could at least fall asleep holding hands. I had drifted off to that beep beep beep of his machine, my fingers clinging to his cold ones with a quiet desperation.

I had woke in the early hours of the morning to a loud, piercing, beeeeeeeeeeeep.

I shot out of my bed, grunting against the pain of my legs as I limped over to Harry’s side. He lay there as pale as a ghost, his eyes closed, his skin so hot, sweat plastering his forehead. I screamed for help when I pressed my ear to his chest and heard nothing.

The nurses I knew all too well came rushing in, wheeling their equipment, on nurse, Mary, had gently pulled me away, telling me I must give them room to work, that Harry would be okay, I just had to let them do their jobs.

I had numbingly complied, letting her lead me to the uncomfortable plastic waiting chairs outside our room. I had glared at the floor, the seconds ticking by like hours, tears falling hot and fast down my face as I listened desperately for that beep beep beep to return.

Four and a half minutes. They had been the worst minutes of my entire life.

When Mary had re-appeared telling me I could go in, she had helped me limp over to Harry’s bedside again. My tears refused to stop and I just clung to his hand, cold and clammy but those weak fingers pressed back against mine. He turned his head a little and smiled small at me.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” I told him, wiping my eyes on the back of my hand, glaring don at those beautiful, green eyes, “don’t you dare ever leave me.”

 

V

 

A month after that I was discharged. I would walk with a cane for a while, Harry teased me, telling me I looked like John Watson from the Sherlock Holmes movies.  

The day I packed up my things to leave, my mother had taken my bag from me silently, smiling at me as she left the room to wait for my outside the ward. I had already said goodbye and thank you to all the nurses. Their tear stained faces in my memory forever, my heart warmed with how much they had done for me, how much they had cared.

Harry had managed to sit up for a while, smiling at me from his bed, that beep beep beep a comforting background noise. He opened his arms wide and I awkwardly climbed onto his bed, nestling down against his chest. His skeleton thin arms had wrapped around me and he kissed my lips. He kissed me for a long time, like he was trying to memorize how it felt to kiss me.

“I’ll visit you every day,” I vowed, pressing my face into his neck, breathing in his smell.

“Good, I’ll be waiting.”

Walking out of that room was one of the hardest things I had ever had to do.

 

V

 

Two weeks later, he confessed something to me.

I had taken to staying over in the hospital every other night. The Nurses of course knew me and allowed it, they told it was good for Harry. When I wasn’t there, he would just lie in his bed, staring out the window, barely speaking to anyone. He hardly ate, everything he managed to swallow didn’t stay down very long. They tried putting him on a liquid diet but it was to no avail.

When I was there, he tried harder. He tried to eat, letting me feed him little bites of food, accepting a sip from his water as I held the cut to his mouth. He would hum softly and stroke his fingers through my hair, kissing my temple and I would drift off to sleep like that.

One night, we were lying together, his fingers caressing my skin gently. He was humming a soft melody and my eyes were closing as I listened.

“Lou?”

I shuddered at his voice. Once smooth like velvet, not ragged and hoarse.

“Yeah, Haz?”

“I think I’m ready to die.”

My heart thudded in my ears at those words.

I leaned up on my elbow to look down at him, he just smiled as he looked back at me, the hollows of his cheekbones dark with shadows, the moon the only light in the room.

“Don’t say that,” I told him, frowning down at his smiling face.

 

“I’m not an idiot, Lou. I know I’m dying. We both do. It’s just a matter of time now.”

Tears stung behind my eyes but I refused to let them fall, instead, I cupped his cheek in my hand and leaned down, kissing him firmly, trying to pour all my love for him into it.

“You can’t leave me,” I whispered against his mouth.

His cheeks were wet; I wasn’t sure if it was because of my tears or his.

“I’ll wait for you, Lou, I’ll be there on the other side, waiting for you with my arms open wide.”

I cried harder, my tears blinding me and he dragged me down against his chest, kissing me fiercely and holding me in his skeletal grasp.

“I love you, Lou, I love you so much.”

The lump in my throat choke my words, but he knew what I was trying to say.

He kissed me all night long, and for a moment, I could forget how awful it all was. He was weak and it hurt to see his skin so tight over his bones, but when he moved inside me and held me so close, it was as if nothing had ever gone wrong, and I could pretend that I had him, mine forever.

 

V

 

Harry died on the 9th of May.

Hating being stuck wired up to all his machines and monitors, he convinced me to steal him away in the night. He wanted to go to the beach.

“One last time, Lou, I want to see it one as time.”

So I had stolen my mum’s car, snuck him out in a wheelchair, wrapped up in two of the thickets blanket I could find, and we drove through the night until the air was salty and we could hear the rushing waves.

He leaned against me as we made our way down to the shore, he was so thin and light I could probably have just carried him there.

We sat on the sand, wrapped up in the blankets, Harry humming softly in my ear, kissing me every now and then.

We stayed until the sun started rising in the sky, Harry marvelling at all the colours, thanking me with a kiss for bringing him to see it all.

I drove us back to the hospital and although we got scolded by the Doctor and nurses, no one seemed to be all that annoyed. They smiled sadly at us as I helped him back into bed and took my place beside him.

He asked me to read the book my mother read him, gifting it to him so he always kept it on his bedside table.

I leaned onto his bed from where I sat in my seep, resting the book and my arms across his thighs. I read the book to the end and smiled when I saw him snoring softly. I folded the book over and went to move into the bed, but sleep stole me quickly and i stayed where I was.

In the morning, I woke to the sunlight steaming through the windows I could hear birds chirping outside and I yawned, opening my eyes to find myself draped across Harry’s thighs, managing to sleep in that chair all night long.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stood up.

“Harry, I’m going to get some water, do you want some?”

My blood went cold when there was no reply.

“Harry?”

I leaned over to look at him and my world grinded to a halt.

He lay still, unnaturally still. His lungs didn’t take in air, his eyes didn’t move in his dreams, he was so, so still.

I tentivey touched his hand and I gasped, he was so cold.

This time was different. I knew calling for the nurse would do no good. He was gone this time. And that what he had wanted.

It still hurt so much.

I clung to him, crying into the blankets encasing him. I was vaguely aware of the nurses coming into the room, trying to comfort me, trying to console me. But all I could do was cry.

 

 

V

 

The beach was cold today. I left my mother standing by the car, my legs tinging in pain as I slowly made my way down to the shore.

The wind was strong and whipped my hair around in all directions. The sun was just starting to set and it’s dying rays sparkled like glitter on the ocean’s waves.

I smiled as I stood in the spot that just a month ago, Harry had sat with me, huddled together under the stars.

I carefully opened the top of the urn, dipping my hand into the powdery ashes.

“I’ll see you on the other side, Harry.”

I watched him sprinkle from my fingers, the wind lifting him and carrying him wherever it may go. I felt warm, like he was here again, like he never really had left me. I smiled as I watched the waves roll and heard the seagulls caw.

“I’ll see you again.”


End file.
